beehiiv vs Substack (2025): Which Newsletter Platform Is Best for Creators?

If you're looking for the best newsletter platform in 2025, two names come up over and over again: beehiiv vs Substack. Both are popular. Both are powerful. But only one is designed for creators who want to grow fast, monetize fully, and own their audience.

In this guide, we’ll compare beehiiv and Substack across 8 critical categories to help you decide which platform is right for your newsletter.

✅ Quick Summary: Which Is Better—beehiiv or Substack?

👉 beehiiv is the better platform for creators, marketers, and entrepreneurs who want to grow and monetize a newsletter business.

Start your beehiiv newsletter for free

🧠 What Is beehiiv?

beehiiv is a modern newsletter platform built by the team that helped scale Morning Brew to millions of subscribers. It’s designed for creators who want full control over their brand, monetization, and growth strategy.

Key Features:

• 100% revenue retention (no platform fees)

• Built-in referral program for viral growth

• Advanced analytics with post-level insights

• Ad monetization even for small lists

• Audience segmentation & automation

• SEO-friendly custom domains and metadata

beehiiv is ideal for creators looking to build a scalable newsletter business—not just a personal blog.

What Is Substack?

Substack is a user-friendly publishing platform focused on simplicity and community. It lets writers publish newsletters and charge for paid subscriptions.

Pros:

• Easy to set up with no coding

• Built-in network through Substack Recommendations

• Clean writing interface

Cons:

• Substack takes 10% of your revenue

• No support for ads or multiple monetization methods

• No audience segmentation or automation

• Can’t use custom domains (URL includes substack.com)

Substack is best suited for writers who want a simple way to publish without needing advanced features or business tools.

Monetization Comparison: beehiiv vs Substack

If you want to make money from your newsletter, this section is key.

With beehiiv, you own 100% of your revenue and can diversify your income through ads, subscriptions, and referral bonuses.

Substack locks you into one model—and takes a cut.

Growth Tools Comparison: Which Platform Helps You Grow Faster?

beehiiv gives you a newsletter growth engine with native referral tracking, automated onboarding flows, and Boosts (paid newsletter swaps that actually convert).

Substack relies mostly on internal discovery.

Analytics & Insights: Know What’s Working

beehiiv analytics:

• Real-time dashboard

• Subscriber growth breakdown

• Post-level engagement

• Heatmaps & link click tracking

• Source attribution

• Retention and churn analysis

Substack analytics:

• Open rates

• Clicks

• Basic subscriber info

If you want to grow, you need data. beehiiv gives you everything you need to optimize your content, referrals, and marketing funnels.

Customization & Branding

beehiiv lets you:

• Use your own custom domain

• Design beautiful landing pages

• Add your logo, color scheme, and favicon

• Control email metadata and SEO tags

Substack does not allow custom domains. You’ll be stuck with a yourname.substack.com URL and Substack branding throughout.

For serious creators building a brand or media company—this is a dealbreaker.

Migrating from Substack to beehiiv

Thinking about switching? Good news—beehiiv makes it easy.

• Import all your past content and subscribers

• Keep your subscriber list and deliverability intact

• Redirect old Substack links for SEO

• Migration support team available

You can switch in under an hour.

Who Should Use beehiiv (and Who Shouldn’t)

beehiiv is best for:

• Creators serious about monetizing

• Newsletter businesses and media brands

• Founders, marketers, consultants

• Anyone who wants advanced growth tools

Substack is best for:

• Hobbyist writers

• Bloggers who don’t want complexity

• Creators who don’t plan to monetize much

If you want to grow an email business—not just write—it’s not even close. beehiiv is the better tool.

My Experience: Why I Moved to beehiiv

I launched my newsletter on Substack. It worked—until I hit a wall:

• No referral tracking

• No way to A/B test landing pages

• 10% fee eating into revenue

I switched to beehiiv and:

• Built a referral system in 1 hour

• Doubled my subscriber growth rate

• Paid 0% in platform fees

• Got access to ad revenue—even with a small list

I don’t just use beehiiv—I recommend it to every serious creator.

📝 Final Verdict: beehiiv or Substack?

beehiiv is the best newsletter platform in 2025 for creators who want to build, scale, and monetize a real business.

🔗 Get Started on beehiiv

If you’re ready to start your newsletter the right way:

👉 Click here to get 20% off Beehiiv

You’ll get access to:

• A business-grade newsletter platform

• Zero platform fees

• Built-in monetization tools

• Your own custom domain

• A referral engine to grow on autopilot